An Ordinary Day
by AuntieFae
Summary: A short story about the day the Cameron farm was attacked. Focuses on Alexandra.


It had been an ordinary day, like any other. There was nothing to recommend it to Alexandra Cameron's notice. It had started like every other day- chores to be done, children to see to, fields to tend to, fences to mend. Jack had left late in the afternoon the previous day for Albany. John had taken James with him to see to the fences. Charlotte had her horn book to learn from. Not even a visit from Ruth and Martin MacDonald, their closest neighbors, on their way to Albany themselves had been particularly noteworthy. They had frequently done so, offering to take any post or goods into Albany, or bring anything back.

Through it all, a knot of vague dread had settled between Alexandra's shoulders that she could not shake or explain. It was the war with France, Martin had suggested. It had disrupted everything, made everyone jumpy over nothing. The war was well away from them, nothing they should worry about in any case. While Alexandra had appreciated the assurance, she was still ill at ease long after they had left.

Tending the garden that afternoon, she thought perhaps Martin was right. The war had been disruptive. Nothing for it but hope for the best and get by as they always had. Alexandra was able to shake off the dread she could not name. Pausing to wipe sweat from her eyes, movement among the trees caught her eyes. She watched for a moment and shook her head, laughing at herself. Now she was seeing things there weren't there. Like as not, it was just some animal. Reaching for the trowel, she saw it again- a shifting of shadows against deeper shadows.

_It could be anything,_ she thought. _A deer, a wayward traveler. Perhaps even Jack._

The dread had settled between her shoulders again. Realistically, Alexandra knew no that no amount of wanting it to be Jack would have made it so. There was nothing that would have brought Jack back to the farm so soon. Not from Albany with half a dozen other men. Not after meeting with that pompous fool General Webb. Cold sweat beaded and made its way down the back of her neck. Her heart started pounding against her ribs in a hard rhythm. There was no where for her to run. No where.

She smelled the Frenchman before she saw him or heard the click of his pistol in her ear. It was the stench of too much whiskey, gunpowder, and having gone too long without even so much as a glance at a wash basin and clean water. It was worse than what she would have expected of a man who would go weeks in the farthest reaches of the frontier and going weeks without human contact. It was worse even than the rank odors she remembered from the voyage from England all those years ago. The odor made her gag, and the click of the pistol made her stumble backwards.

"Whiskey, give," he barked in broken, stilted English.

Alexandra backed away, shaking her head. The MacDonald were going to bring some back from Albany. She began to wonder if they had even gotten there or if they would even come back.

"Whiskey!" he shouted at her.

"We have none! Leave us be!" she yelled. To her own ears, she sounded as if she were begging. Alexandra had prided herself on having never begged for anything in her whole life. Had never run from anything. Had never been truly terrified of anything. The war that was supposed to be far away was suddenly on the Cameron's farm, in her garden. The man yelled something in French in the direction of the cabin. Gun shots answered and the home she and John had worked so hard for was up in flames. Alexandra found her feet and began to run. If she could just make it to the tree line…

There was another crack of musket fire. Alexandra dropped to her knees as a burning sensation spread across her shoulders. For a moment, she had no notion as to what happened. The crack of another musket shot and the force of another musket ball in the back sent her sprawling.

_Oh,_ she thought. _I've been shot_.

She could feel a strange coldness come over and she realized she was dying. Dying over a lack of whiskey. Over living in the wrong valley. Over being British. Dying over nothing. The last thing she knew before slipping into oblivion was that it had been such an ordinary day. Nothing to mark it out. Just an ordinary day in an ordinary life.


End file.
